A hedge fund billionaire and Britain’s third-biggest taxpayer is set to leave the UK for Greece – marking the latest exit among the country’s billionaires, according to reports.
Chris Rokos, the founder of Rokos Capital Management, is preparing to switch his residency and will open an office in Athens as part of the move, according to Bloomberg News.
Mr Rokos is the UK’s third-biggest taxpayer having paid an estimated £330 million in the latest tax year, according to the Sunday Times Tax List.
He has an estimated wealth of £3 billion, according to the Sunday Times Rich List, and earlier this year pledged to donate £190 million to the University of Cambridge, believed to be the biggest individual donation to a British university in modern times.
Rokos Capital Management has grown to manage around 20 billion US dollars (£14.8 billion) in assets, and has offices in London, New York, Abu Dhabi and Singapore, according to its website.
A spokeswoman for the company declined to comment on the reports.
The latest research for the Rich List revealed an ongoing exodus of wealth from the UK following the Government’s non-dom crackdown and inheritance tax changes.
Robert Watts, compiler of the Sunday Times Rich List, previously said there had been a “sharp rise in the number of British nationals now resident in Dubai, Switzerland and Monaco”.
Becoming a resident in a different country does not automatically mean people stop paying tax in the UK, but it throws into question how much the Treasury can continue to collect from those who relocate.
Greece has introduced rules which mean that some individuals who transfer their residency to Greece can pay a lump-sum of 100,000 euros (£86,000) per tax year, regardless of the amount of income earned abroad, for as much as 15 years.
Other high-profile figures to have reportedly exited the UK include British hedge fund manager Michael Platt, who co-founded BlueCrest Capital Management and switched his residency to Switzerland, and Richard Gnodde, a Goldman Sachs executive who moved to Italy.
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